


Hard Evidence

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 12 Days of Revels, AU, F/M, Incest, Marlie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:52:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5553077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Charlie Matheson had grown up in the heart of the Republic she'd have been a very different woman, but some things wouldn't change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard Evidence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Penndragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penndragon/gifts).



> Day One: She is a Liar

 

‘What do you want to be when you grow up, Charlie?’

Her Dad asked her that once, when he was sober. Charlie hadn’t had an answer for him. She’d not wanted to _be_ anything, all she’d known was what she _didn’t_ want to be. For as long as she could remember, she’d been shaped by her opposition to things. To her mother and her ‘don’t rock the boat’ philosophy, to Monroe and his control, to all of it.

She’d have joined the Rebels if she could have stomached it - but it wasn’t like they were innocent. Both sides mouthed the same justifications - their cause was pure, their methods necessary, the dead children were collateral damage. Casualties instead of corpses, causes instead of candour.

So, Charlie told people the truth - the unlovely version of it. When they called her a liar, she showed them instead.

It was an old camera. Even before the Blackout it had been a relic - put behind glass in a museum. Not even worth looting. Charlie had grabbed it on a whim and a vague memory of pulling the lever and pressing the button on something yellow and clunky and plastic. She’d learned to use it, worked out by trial and error how to develop the film, found someone who’d been a chemist in another life to make more.

She took pictures of battlefields and conscript wagons, she photographed dead soldier boys and their grieving mothers. At first she had to bribe and blackmail to get her news-sheets printed up, but they were popular enough that these days she just had to leave the printer plausible deniability. Both sides had tried to stop her, but she was one woman in a world it was easy to get lost in.

Charlie crouched at the edge of the grave, mud soaking through her jeans, and squinted through the viewfinder. In the beginning it had made it easier, she’d been concentrating on lens and focusing and getting everything in. Now that was all second nature, and it was hard to ignore the smell of rot or the buzz of flies.

Two women, five kids. Even their dog. Executed by the rebels for selling information to the Militia. They’d disappeared a week ago, probably the intention was that they’d never be found. Only whoever had buried them hadn’t expected the heavy rains that had washed soil away, stripping the roots of trees naked and floating the corpses up on a bed of mud.

It was ugly. Most things were.

She finished taking the pictures, and pushed herself to her feet. Pulling the camera over her head, she stuffed it into her carry-all - under a stack of folded shirts and jeans. Not exactly high-security, but the best she could do.

Miles was waiting for her when she got to the bar she was staying at, drinking alone at a table while the locals watched with white, frightened faces. There was a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the table. So she guessed he wasn’t here to kill her. Not yet anyhow. Charlie took a deep breath, feeling it shudder in her chest, and walked over to the table. She pulled out the stool and sat down, uneven legs wobbling under her.

‘Whose orders are you here on?’ she asked. ‘Monroe or mom?’

He picked up the whiskey and poured her a shot, hand steadier than the inroads he’d made into the bottle would suggest.

‘I’m not a dog, Charlie. They don’t keep me on a leash.’

‘No?’

She picked up the whiskey and tossed it back, letting it burn the back of her throat. Miles refilled the glass, bottle clinking against the chipped rim and topped up his own drink. The brass buttons on his cuffs clicked against the glass, bright against the dark fabric of his uniform.

‘I’m chasing rebels,’ he said. ‘Last thing I expected to see was my niece walking through town.’

‘They’re gone,’ Charlie said. Most of time, she didn’t help either side. This was different - it was Miles, it was just saving the locals from having the militia hunting through their hay lofts for a week. ‘They murdered a family, put the fear of _them_ into the town, and then moved on.’

That made grimace and look away, dragging his thumb over his lower lip. Charlie didn’t know if it was sympathy for the dead, or annoyance at his target being one step ahead of him.

‘You shouldn't have to see that sort of thing, Charlie,’ he said. ‘That’s why he brought you to the Republic, so you’d not see that sort of thing. So you’d be safe.’

Charlie wrapped both hands around her glass, swirling the liquid slowly. ‘I know.’

Everything she was, was so she’d not be what someone else wanted. It probably wasn’t the healthiest way to live your life.

‘So what now?’ she asked.

‘Now we order another bottle,’ Miles said, raising his hand to the barkeep.

Charlie followed the gesture and then looked back at Miles, studying the hard lines of his lean face. His eyes were the same colour as the whiskey, and even at rest there was something sardonic about his mouth. He was her uncle - her Dad’s baby brother. Except that was never where he’d fit in her life. It had been Monroe who’d played that role, teaching her to ride, teaching her to shoot, having her first boyfriend beat bloody.

Miles had never been there. He was the Butcher, General Miles Matheson of the Militia - Monroe’s bloody handed ghost with a bad reputation and sad eyes. He’d loved her mom once - she’d worked _that_ out on her own, because God forbid anyone ever tell her anything - and her dad said he was good at killing.

‘Drinking until you can blame the whiskey?’ she asked.

Miles tongued his lower lip, a betraying swipe of his tongue, and looked at her. ‘That’s for amateurs, Charlie. I always blame myself - the whiskey just convinces me I won’t hate myself in the morning.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Hate yourself, or hate me?’

‘Either,’ she said.

‘You should,’ he said.

She finished her drink, catching the last drop from the rim. ‘Hate myself?’

‘No. Never,’ he said. Leaning over the table he touched her arm, fingers curling around her wrist. ‘You’re the last good thing in the world, Charlie. Just don’t want you hanging around with me.’

 --------------------------------------

He tasted of whiskey and exhaustion, his hands tangled in Charlie’s hair as he shoved her back against the wall. She stretched up into the kiss, shoving his jacket impatiently off his shoulders and tugging at his shirt.

It had been a long time. It didn’t matter. They stripped down to bare skin and scars, fingers and lips finding the raw new lines.

Charlie gasped, trapping a curse behind her teeth, as Miles knelt between her legs. He yanked her jeans down, fingers hooked in the pockets, and pressed his mouth against her wet, tender flesh. Stubble rough lips and the hard swipe of his tongue made her bit her lips and dig her fingers in his hair. She arched her hips off the wall, her stomach pulling tight, and urged him on.

Pleasure stirred in her stomach like whiskey in a glass, warm and slow. Miles’ tongue thrust inside her, quick, eager jabs that made her body tighten like a wire. Sometimes it felt like she was one of her film slides, like she only came into focus when Miles was with her. Inside her.

Rough hands slid up her thighs, coaxing them wider to accommodate Miles shoulders. His mouth covered her, wet suction and the blunt slide of his teeth against the folds of her, and Charlie came with a groan and his name on her tongue.

‘Come home,’ he said, kissing his way up a stomach that was still trembling with aftershocks. Charlie hissed as he paused at her breasts, gentle bites and licks that never quite reached the tight nipple. ‘I miss you, Charlie.’

‘Then stay with me,’ she said.

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Whatever knot of wrong tied them together, his ties with Monroe were older and just as twisted.

This time when he kissed her, he tasted of her. A hand under her ass clenched in the soft flesh, rough fingers hitching her thigh up. She hooked her leg around his hip, burying her face in his shoulder.

‘Charlie,’ he groaned in her ear. ‘My girl.’

He thrust into her hard, burying his cock so deep in her that it trembled on the edge of pain. She gasped against his throat, teeth scraping the thin skin, and used her leg to pull him deeper. The thick heat of him stretched her tight, a dull ache of want settling in the cup of her hips.

‘Miles,’ she groaned into his skin. ‘Please - now, I want you _now.’_

He dragged her head back, raking his fingers through tangled hair, and dragged his mouth over hers, swallowing her groan as he slammed into her again. Charlie kissed his back, tongue tangling enthusiastically with his, and dug her fingers into his shoulders to steady herself.

Each thrust sent waves of dark to darker pleasure rippling through her, twitching her nerves with the promise of more and soon and… She begged, almost wordless, and raked her nails down his back, as Miles growled possession into her ear.

His. His.

Charlie’s back hit the wall, plaster scraping the sharp arch of her shoulder blades, and Miles pulled out just before she came. He came on her stomach, cock sliding through the wet, sticky mess of it, and she came with sword callused fingers buried deep inside her.

‘Come back to Philly,’ he said, kissing her temple. ‘Your mother…’

‘Has Danny,’ Charlie said, leaning her head back against the wall. She was flushed and panting, still trembling with wanting him. ‘Monroe probably misses me more than she does.’

Miles leaned back to study her face. ‘I thought you hated him.’

‘Not the point,’ Charlie sighed. She stroked Miles’ face, fingers sliding over the stubble. ‘We can talk in the morning.’

He turned his head and kissed her palm. ‘You’ll be gone in the morning.’

That was true. She shrugged and pulled him towards the bed. ‘Then don’t spoil tonight.’

 ------------------------------------

He was still sleeping when she slid out of bed in the morning. He trusted her. Charlie got dressed quickly, as quietly as she could manage. Her bag and camera were where she’d dropped them at the door. She thought - the same way she always did - about taking a picture of Miles, face still and soft as he dreamed, his hair a messy scruff and his body sprawled and relaxed across the sheets.

Except, he was the only thing she didn’t a picture of to know it was true.


End file.
